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They Were Content.
What happened to them? How did this occur? The answer is found
in the words, “ . . and have need of nothing.” These
men and women were content with their “Christian activities.” This
is a hard spiritual disease to identify in a church. What
was the problem? Did the congregation stop doing anything?
Did they stop attending church, worshipping in song, teaching
and preaching the Bible, giving money, or having social times
with one another? In what way were they content?
The key measures of spiritual success in most churches are
how many people are attending on Sunday morning and whether
the church bank account is full. But these are not biblical
standards of success. Money is not a measure of God’s
blessing nor is attendance. If that were true, then Jeremiah
the prophet would have been a great failure because he was
alone during his ministry. There were men who deserted the
apostle Paul for a number of reasons. The size of the crowd
is not a biblical standard for success. If money is the measure
of God’s blessing, then how do we explain the situation
that the apostle Paul endured? The apostle gives us some
insight into his own suffering when he says,
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To this present hour we are both hungry and thirsty,
and are poorly clothed, and are roughly treated, and
are homeless; and we toil, working with our own hands;
when we are reviled, we bless; when we are persecuted,
we endure; when we are slandered, we try to conciliate;
we have become as the scum of the world, the dregs
of all things, even until now. (NASB) 1 Cor. 4:11-13
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Spiritual blessing is not found in the offering plate or in
the size of the church meetings. A church without a passionate
vision for the lost, without a passionate vision for spiritual
growth, and without a passionate vision for making each church
member a minister for Jesus is a church that is lukewarm.
The early church had vision for the lost. Its leaders were
committed with a passion to the ministry of the Word and
prayer (Acts 6:1-4). The saints were dying as the result
of persecution and the battle for truth was now a war.
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